Lucien Kabuga, a suspect in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, has died in custody in The Hague. A U.N. court announced the death on Saturday, stating that he was 93.
An ethnic Hutu tycoon and one of Rwanda's richest businessmen, Kabuga was indicted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. He was accused of encouraging, financing, and directing the 100-day massacre that killed more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Prosecutors specifically alleged that he armed Hutu militias and promoted hate speech through his broadcaster, Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines.
Once one of the world's most-wanted fugitives, Kabuga spent more than two decades on the run before being arrested in France in 2020 and extradited to The Hague. Although his trial began in 2022, he was later ruled unfit to stand trial due to dementia and was also deemed too ill to return to Rwanda.
As no country was willing to accept him, Kabuga remained in the U.N. detention centre in The Hague. The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, which oversees remaining cases from the former U.N. tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, has ordered an inquiry into the circumstances of his death.